The Irish Farmers' Association (IFA) has warned that farmers’ contributions to reducing carbon emissions in other economic sectors must be recognised.

IFA president Tim Cullinan described how “the 2021 climate action plan already clearly shows farmers are contributing to other sectors achieving their reduction targets”.

He said that the plan shows that while the expansion of anaerobic digestion (AD) on farms will reduce agriculture’s emissions by between 100,000t and 200,000t of carbon dioxide equivalent, it will “actually deliver a reduction of 400,000t for the energy sector”.

Cullinan warned that this “reality” must be recognised in ongoing Government negotiations on the emissions reduction target to be set for agriculture.

Farm measures

The Tipperary farmer pointed out that “other measures such as forestry and carbon farming are currently counted in the land use and land use change and forestry (LULUCF) sector and not towards reducing agricultural emissions”.

He said that such environmental weathers will be “in addition to a legally binding target of 22%”.

“The figures being used by some NGOs to try turn the general public against farmers are based on one person’s analysis, which has not been robustly peer reviewed. In fact, it is already being publicly questioned by other academics.

“To say that the difference between 22% and 30% amounts to in terms of cost per household or cars on the road is speculative at best,” the IFA president said.

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